UPPCO crews sent to help out Flint area

December 27, 2013

ISHPEMING - On Thursday, Upper Peninsula Power Company and its sister company Wisconsin Public Service, both subsidiaries of Integrys Energy Group sent crews to the Flint area to assist Consumers Energy with the ongoing utility restoration efforts.

Almost 50 employees from UPPCO and WPS joined other utility employees from numerous utility companies to assist restoration efforts to customers without power in Michigan resulting from this past weekend's ice storm. The UPPCO and WPS employees and equipment left their site locations to meet in Escanaba and departed for Flint late Thursday afternoon.

"These types of extreme outages encourage other utility companies to step in and assist those seriously affected," said Keith Moyle, UPPCO Vice-President and General Manager. "We understand what the utility company, their customers and employees are working through during these challenging weather patterns." Understanding those conditions is what makes our utility want to go and help. Our goal is help them restore power quickly, yet safely to those customers affected."

Crews could be assisting Consumers Energy throughout the weekend. Currently Consumers Energy restoration times are going into this Saturday which would mean some customers would be without power for a week.

UPPCO and WPS will leave employees behind to ensure the safe and reliable delivery of electricity to its own customers and infrastructure.

The cost of the assistance will be passed along to the respective utility company requesting the assistance and will have no effect on UPPCO or WPS customers.